Wednesday, October 5, 2011

[Noted copyright criminal "The Pirate King" sent me this review for the one about King Wenceslas. So, you're welcome. -Ed.]

So, we've got a christmas carol comic in early october. That's cool I guess, I mean all the stores are gearing up for the holidays so why shouldn't xkcd? Or I don't know, maybe Randall's been working on this one for the better part of a year and finally found the courage to publish it. That would make more sense given this comic's track record with timeliness.

So it's another black hat guy comic. As much as I agree that randall has totally forgotten how to do these, I find them a relief from the usual crap, ie, some horrible pun, nerd reference, or emotional bullcrap. I mean who doesn't like some good ol' fashioned trolling?

That being said, this is a pretty tired joke. It's the setup where one character is trying to tell a joke or be enthusiastic about something, and another character kills it with tragedy, and then the first character feels guilty. "How dare you say that, my father was killed by a _____!" Randall is just putting it in a different context, and one that doesn't make any sense. According to Wikipedia, an infallible source of information on all things everywhere, King Wenceslaus didn't massacre anybody. So check your fucking facts, RANDALL.

I did find a tidbit in the alt text amusing, although not in the dark-humor way that randall intended it. To my knowledge, the phrase "a thousand generations" can come from only two sources; the Bible, or Star Wars. Since Randall has made it clear he is an atheist, I can only assume this is a Star Wars reference; possibly an unintentional one.

For what it's worth King Wenceslas' feast day in the Catholic Church was in late September, so that's possibly the inspiration for a christmas caroling comic this early. Of course even then it's late...

Actually, R. 2:01, in this instance "your" is the proper homonym to use. Anon was using "using a computer made by slave labourers working under an oppressive regime half way across the world as part of a global system of exploitation and resource appropriation" as a noun, albeit an extremely long and descriptive one. It could be rephrased "Your use of a computer..." to a similar, but less obfuscated effect.

It's bizarre to use Wenceslaus I as an example though. His brother Boreslav, yes. The only thing Wenceslaus was ever accused of was authorizing or abetting the killing of John of Nepomuc, and that was probably a false charge, as well.

@Slavey McSlaverton - I think you're missing the point. Slavery is not a club where you know every other slave.

Back on topic...

961 was good. The alt text explains the joke, but thankfully does not ruin it. I will point out though that Randall has had this comic in storage for months, and chose to post it just now. That is, it was not drawn specifically to mark Mr Jobs' passing, for two reasons:

1) If it had, it would contain a reference to Mr Jobs in the alt text.

and 2) Randall could not conceive and execute such a good idea in, what, 12 hours?

What kind of people would attack someone they don't even know by calling her a whore, just 'cause she's the wife of the guy who makes jokes they don't like?

...oops, right, people who like this website! Sorry, keep on and enjoy your ability to insult. Mind you, repeating that on and on will not help you to learn how to argue... not that you care, I suppose.

Leaving aside whether you have arguments or not (oh, you do! But you don't want to use them... lol, does anyone buy that, seriously?), there are still the insults, completely uncalled for. How do you feel about them appearing in your page?

I don't see a problem with this comic. Mr. Black hat has a reputation of doing things nonsensical and/or destructive for the sake of ruining someone's day.He just wrecked caroling by invoking the fact that history has many sides to be interpreted. Whether it's true or not does not matter to Black hat himself.

I agree with the previous poster. Coming with something like "King Wenceslaus didn't massacre anybody. So check your fucking facts, RANDALL" is very retarded since the author is not stating that as a fact in any way. It's clearly the kind of evil joke BHG would make to a group of people caroling. But I guess you had to find something to critique, so you pretended to believe that was meant to be a historical fact.

As for the previous-previous poster, I'd say the author of this blog actually encourages insults and is not shy to use them himself. Don't sweat it.

...well, apparently, at a place called "respect", which I think you haven't heard of. So, when someone calls the wife of the guy who writes xkcd "a whore" and mocks of her cancer, you endorse it 100%? Why is that?

Anon, cut him some slack... this guy does not have a succesful webcomic, despite being so good at criticizing others'. But he still can, at least, find some joy in others' misfortune, specially if those others are related to the guy with the succesful webcomic he hates for all those reasons that he doesn't want to mention. So again, don't sweat it.

Explaining? But when someone questions your "arguments" you either attack that someone personally or pretend to be in posession of a truth that they cannot understand, like saying "one of these days, if you're lucky, you'll understand. but probably not", as to avoid, precisely, giving an explanation.

Come on, you just said in this post that you had arguments but you didn't want to use them.

I also note that you don't even mention the rest of my comment... sorry if I hit a nerve.

explanations are not arguments. there is a big difference that i hope to god you will figure out when you're older.

i don't mention the rest of your comment because i don't care. suggesting that someone who has just said 'schadenfreude ist die schoenste freude' might enjoy himself a bit of schadenfreude is not a very interesting comment. did you really think that was clever or incisive in any way?

What the hell is this?

Welcome. This is a website called XKCD SUCKS which is about the webcomic xkcd and why we think it sucks. My name is Carl and I used to write about it all the time, then I stopped because I went insane, and now other people write about it all the time. I forget their names. The posts still seem to be coming regularly, but many of the structural elements - like all the stuff in this lefthand pane - are a bit outdated. What can I say? Insane, etc.

I started this site because it had been clear to me for a while that xkcd is no longer a great webcomic (though it once was). Alas, many of its fans are too caught up in the faux-nerd culture that xkcd is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. This used to be called "XKCD: Overrated", but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks.

Here is a comic about me that Ann made. It is my favorite thing in the world.

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